How does it feel to be on a waiting list for a kidney? Or a heart? Or any other organ?

How does it feel to live without knowing when you get your second chance of healthy life if get it at all?

These questions are rising in my head while reading an email from Mer Organ Donation (that is ‘More Organ Donation’ in English). MOD is a Swedish non-profit organization that supports people who are in need of an organ transplantation.

In autumn 2015 MOD launched a new campaign named #Vadväntardupå? — which in Swedish means "What are you waiting for?". The campaign shows photos of the people who are currently on waiting lists, portrayed in situations where they are waiting, in a traffic jam or at a bus stop etc.

This year MOD expands the campaign to include more people and more waiting situations. I was asked to shoot three women, two of which are waiting for a kidney, and the third one is willing to donate a kidney, to be an anonymous living donor.

So here they are.

It is a bright hot summer day in the beginning of June and there is a young woman willing to play mini golf. Her name is Charlotte. She lives in Stockholm and waits for a kidney.

The woman standing in the queue for a candy-floss is Therese. She is also waiting for a kidney.

The woman waiting for an ice-cream is Pernilla. She is a police officer and a mother of five (!). By the way, she is with her youngest daughter in the second picture. Pernilla is waiting to donate a kidney to a complete stranger, in other words, she will be an anonymous living donor.

I couldn't but ask why she is doing that. The first thing that comes to my mind is that, probably, one of her family members needed a transplantation and died without getting. She says no. Is it because she used to have a close friend with the need of transplantation? Again no. Pernilla says that she is doing it simply to help a person who really needs it. Just to make this world better, I thought. Wow, what a dedication! Her family should be proud of her.